Caelum folded his lanky frame into a crouch on Vinka's far side, a wordless murmur escaping him in an attempt to ease the horse to his presence. It was vaguely musical, as if a murmur could possess an accent and that accent be of no corporeal language. A well scarred hand rested lightly against Vinka's leg, patient while allowing the horse to become accustomed to his touch, and he considered Kavala's words. Yet above the giant's blood depths of those thoughts floated a physician's interior lists and he reached for his kit, fishing out a solution of treated and distilled seaweed that had been mixed into an ointment. The Opal Order healer from whom he had learned the process years ago had referred to is an iodine solution, something Caelum understood to be a scientific term for a chemical sea weed was naturally loaded with. Spread into a horse's frog, it would assist in preventing the over drying that mud rot could cause and thus keep the hoof from turning brittle.
After digging muck free of Vinka's hoof, he spread the ointment deep within the crevice. Wordlessly, the small container of ointment was slid to Kavala for application on Vinka's other fore-hoof and he carefully worked his way up the muscled leg. Long, calloused fingers gently felt the lay of muscle and bone, testing for swelling or strain. He made use of Kavala's liniment on a few minor scrapes before breath hissed through his teeth at the sight of a deeper cut just above and behind the horse's knee joint.
It was not until he was reaching for his needle, for his carbolic wash and sterilized cat gut, that he broke the silence. Clove oil, he thought, even while speaking, to help numb the wound before he began stitching.
"A man I knew, years ago, once told me that he did not want to become something that had happened to me. It's a strange phrase, isn't it? I think he meant he did not want to harm me, and it was his excuse to walk away like he did. We spoke earlier about damage, how the weak use the damage the world has done them to justify themselves, how the strong strive to do what is right despite the amount and degree of damage they have suffered."
He paused, the sharp scent of the clove oil in his nostrils, and watched for a moment the way the light shone in Kavala's pale hair. It cause him to think of his impression, of butterflies and nets and skies so blue they could break your soul, when he had first met her eyes. He was rambling, he realized, which was out of character for him. He felt sometimes as if he had been muted all of his life -- a life a mere seven years in length the way he considered it -- and knew it was out of defense. Though he often shoved people away out of self defense, he shoved them away in an attempt to protect them sometimes too. He was afraid of the black hole eclipsing inside of him.
He dipped the needle in carbolic and begun to string it.
"A lot of things have happened to me, around me. What I wonder is in what way you think I'm different from other people," and that had him frowning a bit, eyes narrowing with concentration on the job before him. Reaching up one hand to rest against the powerful expanse of the horse's chest, he listened to the deep metronome of Vinka's heart, letting it soothe the both of them for a little while. Once he was satisfied they were both braced, he began the swift, deft process of stitching. This particular cut would only require a few.
"I don't know if my experiences have been so different from anyone else's," he said finally, words soft, the thin film of fatigue that had little to do with the body coating his words. "You yourself, you've been enslaved." Like a ghost, he could feel again her fingers whispering across the scars on his wrist, the feel of the misting rain on his face as the fear ebbed from her own. "There is that. That's something that has happened to both of us."
And for this odd hour of the world, it felt almost as if they were neither of them alone because of it. Truth or an hopeful lie, he horded the feeling away in the same manner in which he horded sanity, saving it for the times he would need it the most.